Home Phoenix Suns Saturday, January 11, 2014

Meanwhile, although you sound reasonable for most of your post, at the end you make statements that Singler is in fact a fine small forward. How strong is that sentiment of yours, and is it effecting your view of my criticism of Singler.

Click to expand...

This is a perfect example of Confirmation Bias. As I have before, I said multiple times in that post that Kyle Singler is a limited player with strengths and weaknesses:

1) "He has obvious flaws. He's not a game changer. He's not a SF that's going to give you 20 points and 8 boards a game while shooting 3/6 from downtown. He's not going to hold other teams' scorers to zero points."
2) "Nobody here is saying Singler is an all-star. Nobody is calling him an amazing player. He makes mistakes. He isn't perfect."

But then you saw me say "he actually is a pretty decent player," and in your mind, it's enough to justify you questioning everything I said in the rest of the post. One little piece of information that kind of fit what you were looking for, and it completely overruled the rest of what I said. That is a perfect example of the level of biased analysis you're doing with Singler.

I'm not some sort of stringent Singler defender; my sentiment toward him is not strong at all. He is what he is; a role player that does a few things well, that two coaches now have decided merited playing starters' minutes, if not a starter's role. The data does not back up the claim that he is a bad defender, despite what you (and a handful of others) have concluded.

In fact, this post was not so much about Singler at all, but about the general tendency to harbor our own biases and - if we're not careful - to let those biases affect our judgment. I used Singler as an example because it's clearly your most recent crusade - it was an opportunity to demonstrate to others (if you aren't willing to see yourself) that our own biases can affect our ability to analyze things. In fact, I gave an example of my own bias with regard to KCP; he's been playing better in some ways, but I wanted to believe it. We all do it, and so do you, but it feels to me that you take it farther than most others. And then you gave me that nice little ironic example of another bias, and, well, I just had to respond.

This is a perfect example of Confirmation Bias. As I have before, I said multiple times in that post that Kyle Singler is a limited player with strengths and weaknesses:

1) "He has obvious flaws. He's not a game changer. He's not a SF that's going to give you 20 points and 8 boards a game while shooting 3/6 from downtown. He's not going to hold other teams' scorers to zero points."
2) "Nobody here is saying Singler is an all-star. Nobody is calling him an amazing player. He makes mistakes. He isn't perfect."

But then you saw me say "he actually is a pretty decent player," and in your mind, it's enough to justify you questioning everything I said in the rest of the post. One little piece of information that kind of fit what you were looking for, and it completely overruled the rest of what I said. That is a perfect example of the level of biased analysis you're doing with Singler.

I'm not some sort of stringent Singler defender; my sentiment toward him is not strong at all. He is what he is; a role player that does a few things well, that two coaches now have decided merited playing starters' minutes, if not a starter's role. The data does not back up the claim that he is a bad defender, despite what you (and a handful of others) have concluded.

In fact, this post was not so much about Singler at all, but about the general tendency to harbor our own biases and - if we're not careful - to let those biases affect our judgment. I used Singler as an example because it's clearly your most recent crusade - it was an opportunity to demonstrate to others (if you aren't willing to see yourself) that our own biases can affect our ability to analyze things. In fact, I gave an example of my own bias with regard to KCP; he's been playing better in some ways, but I wanted to believe it. We all do it, and so do you, but it feels to me that you take it farther than most others. And then you gave me that nice little ironic example of another bias, and, well, I just had to respond.

Click to expand...

Your "Pretty decent player" and my "does not belong in the NBA" are very different opinions. Now, saying he is a limited player with strengths and weaknesses, that kind of player can be useful since you can use the strengths. In my opinion, Singler has no strengths, and therefore, does not belong in the NBA.

"Kyle Singler, the best player on the team at moving without the basketball."

Do you feel someone else is better at this task?

Click to expand...

I bet I could find a million soccer players who can move better than any NBA player. Singler moving is pointless on defense, since he moves too slow to follow any perimeter player, and arrives around the basket way to slight of stature to do any good against any frontline player in the league. On offense, if the other team bothers to put any defensive effort against Singler, he arrives at the basket completely incapable of scoring over real NBA players. So what good is movement to no point?

I bet I could find a million soccer players who can move better than any NBA player. Singler moving is pointless on defense, since he moves too slow to follow any perimeter player, and arrives around the basket way to slight of stature to do any good against any frontline player in the league. On offense, if the other team bothers to put any defensive effort against Singler, he arrives at the basket completely incapable of scoring over real NBA players. So what good is movement to no point?

Here's a video of Kyle Singler moving without the ball, playing defense against NBA players, and scoring 20 points against real NBA players. At the end of the short clip you can hear Greg Kelser praising Kyle's ability to move without the ball and score. I watched the video 10 times, playing close attention to what Kyle Singler was doing, so I'm confident it's legit.

Correct, no bias at all. Just stating the facts, Singler is a hopeless case of tweenerism. Now, if you are so sure I am wrong, are you sure you are not the one who is biased? PS, I am hardly the only one who notices that Singler arrives late all the time on a play, or does not arrive at all, or simply arrives with nothing to fight with.

I bet I could find a million soccer players who can move better than any NBA player. Singler moving is pointless on defense, since he moves too slow to follow any perimeter player, and arrives around the basket way to slight of stature to do any good against any frontline player in the league. On offense, if the other team bothers to put any defensive effort against Singler, he arrives at the basket completely incapable of scoring over real NBA players. So what good is movement to no point?

Where did you get this data? Additionally, it also needs to include the number of times they did NOT convert. Putting the opponent in the position to have a 3 pt play is no different.

Click to expand...

Synergy:mySynergySports.com (looks like I can't link directly to the page. You can see player data for free though, so type in his name in the box and click on the defense tab). It goes a little slow.

His and-ones are up to 4 now btw, after the last few games were posted (they previously only logged through WAS).

Singler's overall foul rate is really low at 3.1% of his man's possessions. That is 7 shooting fouls on the season on his man with 4 and 1's added to that.

He's forced 21 turnovers and here is how they convert on him when they get their shot off:

53-123 from 2-point range (.431)

18-69 from 3-point range (.261)

Overall, .82 ppp. Besides Jorts, this is the best we have at forcing misses. Bynum is at .81, but he allows a higher shooting percentage and gets his figure down through his high steal rate (almost 20% of his man's possessions). Josh Smith is up to 0.98 mainly because they drain 3's on him all day long. Up to .398 from deep against JS with the updated games.

I'm just saying that I can live with a few and-1's because they are the result of him challenging 200+ shots and forcing such a high miss rate.